Various compositions have been applied to textiles in an effort to achieve good repellency of such textiles when contacted with liquids, such as oils and water. Thus, it is desirable to provide textiles or fabric with repellency characteristics.
Furthermore, soil or stain release performance of textiles is important to textile consumers. Soil or stain release refers in general to the ability of a textile, once stained, to release the soil or stain upon laundering. In general, oil-based stains tend to remain in the textile within the textile fibers, which is highly undesirable. For example, oils which have not been repelled by the textile surface but have deposited into the textile are sometimes difficult to remove by routine washing procedures.
Stain resistant textile treatments are known. Commercially known products that have been used for such textile treating applications include, for example, Teflon® (produced by the DuPont Company of Wilmington, Del.), Scotchgard® (produced by 3M Company of Minneapolis, Minn.), and Nano-Pel® by Burlington Industries of North Carolina. These compositions, when applied to textiles, afford some degree of protection.
What is needed in the industry, however, are improved compositions that facilitate sufficient oil and water repellency in a textile application without sacrificing good soil and stain release from such textiles upon laundering. In particular, it would be desirable to provide a formulation for application to textiles that is capable of affording release of stains such as burned motor oil and transmission fluids, for example. This invention is directed to improved compositions and methods.